All on board? Powerful Pittsburgh-area panels are more diverse, but progress is uneven

Women hold nearly half of the seats on major boards and commissions that make many decisions in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, and Black residents hold more than one in every four, PublicSource has found as part of the year-long Board Explorer project.

Both figures represent steps toward greater diversity in the region’s power structure. In 2005, women occupied fewer than ⅓ of seats on county and city boards, according to a study done then by Carnegie Mellon University students in partnership with the Women and Girls Foundation of Southwest Pennsylvania. Black residents held 23% of the seats for which the race of the member was known in 2005, but now hold 28%.

Presented with PublicSource’s findings, diversity advocates were united in one sentiment: Progress is no cause for complacency.

“That’s great that we are better than we were 15 years ago, but we’re probably still 15 years behind” in terms of overall inclusiveness, said Morgan Overton, 26, among the youngest panelists since her appointment this year to the city’s Gender Equity Commission.

PublicSource examined 56 boards and commissions and gathered data on the people who hold 474 seats on those panels. Among the findings:

 

 

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All on board? Powerful Pittsburgh-area panels are more diverse, but progress is uneven

 

 

Left to right: Alberto Benzaquen, of Pittsburgh’s Commission on Human Relations; Cori Frazer of the City-County Task Force on Disabilities; and Morgan Overton of the Gender Equity Commission are helping to diversify the region’s power structure in ways that weren’t even envisioned 15 years ago. (Photos by Jay Manning/PublicSource)

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